Proton – tightening safety regs and how it will comply

Safety is a big thing in our car industry today – more than it has ever been. Regulatory bodies, research institutes and carmakers alike have been tirelessly working in the background for higher safety standards and awareness in Malaysia, in an attempt to keep road accidents, injuries and fatalities at bay. We at paultan.org have voraciously championed the cause for years.

With the ongoing implementation of more UN regulations for new vehicle type approvals (VTA), higher stringency in ASEAN NCAP and more carmakers stepping up to the plate to comply, there’s much to look forward to. However, while vehicle safety awareness appears to be growing in urban areas – indicative of a more mature and sophisticated market – sadly, there remain many Malaysian motorists for whom safety is still not a priority.

And while it’s easy to point fingers at the relevant authorities for not doing enough to enforce or spread awareness, as clichéd as it sounds, safety begins with you. It’s an attitude. At a recent press briefing, Proton chief technical officer Abdul Rashid Musa outlined the safety standards to come and how Proton will meet them. So much has been done, researched, invested, designed, conceptualised; yet, all it takes is for someone to not wear a seat belt or not use a child seat to rubbish everybody’s hard work to save lives.

We’ve told you before about the upcoming UN regulations – 24 have been gazetted this year, 18 of which concern passenger cars. By 2017, a further 22 will be gazetted, 10 of which apply to passenger cars. Finally by 2020, an additional 19 will be gazetted, with 11 of them applicable to passenger cars.

The regulations cover every conceivable vehicle component, fitting, function and system, to ensure they adhere to specification. Some only apply where that component or system is fitted (like daytime running lamps, headlamp cleaners and speed limiters). At present, there are 134 UN regulations in total under the World Forum for Harmonisation of Vehicle Regulations (WP29) – the aim is to incorporate a total of 126 into Malaysian law by 2020.

In addition to that, ASEAN NCAP’s safety rating system is going to become stricter. Beginning this year, R95 side impact compliance is a pre-requisite for a three-star rating (down from the previous four) and from next year, electronic stability control (ESC) and driver and front passenger seat belt reminders will be required for four stars (down from the previous five).

This means that for all vehicles tested from 2015 onwards, if they do not pass the side impact test, they can only be rated two stars at best. And for vehicles tested from 2016 onwards, if they do not have ESC or seat belt reminders, the most they can get is three stars. According to Rashid, the crash-testing remains voluntary, and already-rated vehicles won’t ‘lose’ their stars with the introduction of the new rating system (unless a re-test is carried out, of course). Buyers are urged to check the crash test date on the ASEAN NCAP result plate.

By 2017, new rating schemes (not elaborated upon) will come into force for frontal offset, side impact and child protection tests. By 2020, the frontal test will include a fifth-percentile female dummy in a combined score (following Euro NCAP protocol), while the side test will include pole impact and the Advanced European Mobile Deformable Barrier. Of course, the roadmaps of Australasian NCAP (ANCAP) and Euro NCAP are so far ahead, but we’ve all got to start somewhere – better late than never!

With all that in mind, Rashid was keen to point out Proton’s focus and emphasis on vehicle safety, spearheaded by its Preve, Suprima S and Iriz models. Apart from meeting UN ECE regulations (which is the dominant automotive standard in the world, thus facilitating export), they are all five-star ASEAN NCAP cars (counting out the ESC-less Suprima S Standard), with the Preve and Suprima S also having five stars from ANCAP. The Iriz is the cheapest new car in Malaysia with ESC – and ESC is standard across its range.

Safety features include the employment of hot-press-formed (HPF) parts and ultra high-strength steel in construction, Isofix child seat points, five three-point seat belts and seat belt reminders, in addition to the usual ABS, EBD, BA, ESC, traction control and airbags. But Proton’s newest baby, the Iriz, having ticked the passive and active safety boxes, is set to take things even further – it seems being the most affordable five-star ASEAN NCAP car in the region is not enough.

The chief technical officer also saw fit to address some issues that went viral on social media in the past – chiefly the accident involving a Preve in which its engine detached, leading many to question the car’s quality. It was explained that the engine is designed to detach in heavy collisions via collapsible mounts, so it doesn’t intrude into the passenger compartment and injure the occupants.

The roof caved in, a sure indication of a roll-over, but the roof side structures (made of HPF parts) remained intact, due to their strength. The doors unlocked automatically upon impact and could be opened – a testament to the passenger cell’s strength and effectiveness.

Rashid revealed that Proton is recommending Bomba to be part of the VTA committee (currently made up of the Transport ministry, MITI, JPJ, Road Safety Department, Puspakom and SIRIM). This is because in an accident, the Fire Department are the ones who have to handle the situation first-hand, and the rescue method of sawing through the roof would simply not work on modern HPF Protons because of the immense rigidity. Proton has in-house facilities to test roof strength, although it is at present not required, he said.

So much can be said about Proton. The age-old qualms surrounding reliability, quality, after-sales and even the nature of its existence may or may not be founded, but its intensive focus on safety at these price points and in so doing, bringing active safety to the people, is one thing it’s doing utterly and irrevocably right.

While most dream of the future, Jonathan Tan dreams of the past, although he's never been there. Fantasises much too often about cruising down Treacher Road (Jalan Sultan Ismail) in a Triumph Stag that actually works, and hopes this stint here will snap him back to present reality.

Not a big fan of Proton but it’s good at least they are doing something on safety.

Unlike P2 and UMW continue to rip of people’s money like no tomorrow. They are brothers walking hand-in-hand, one without ABS, another without ESP for their base range models.

Malaysians need to be more safety conscious! Support brands who take care of your safety, like Kia, Honda, Mazda, or even Proton that everyone hates. We need to see more brands setting a high benchmark for others!

Aih, bragging about Proton like old man from old folks home again. Yah, we know your Proton is “Volvo of Asia”. Can you please shut up? People rather buy Kia, Honda or Mazda than Proton. The sales figure shows it

Lol.. P2 macai detected. He was merely saying Proton is good at least they are concern about safety. I saw some other also saying that it’s good to for a cheap car brand to set high benchmark for others to follow, why not?

And here you suddenly bash for no reason, bark like a dog. If you want to buy a 50k plus MyVi (only have ABS and EBD) over a 50k plus Preve (6 airbags, ESP standard) or 90k plus Vios TRD (2 airbags, no ESP) over a 90k plus City (6 airbags, ESP) for your son or wife because you do not value life of your loved ones, by all means go ahead.

Now you see the similarity between P2 and UMW? Life ain’t cheap my deer. Yet I am puzzled why there are people like you who are being treated by a money-sucking company like P2 and UMW which do not value your life simply give you car with joke safety features, still want to say something good about them. Pity to you. Pity to Proton who try so hard to improve. There are people who still live in milo tin and power window issue.

Did he mention anything about UMW and P2? Nope, and you just bark like a dog, aiming at the wrong tree. He was just saying we know how “safe” Proton is and there is no need to brag. You’re just making more people hate the brand by talking shit about other brands. Pity to macai like you everytime have to defend the brand

Why talk now about safety when 30 years Proton never bother about safety? How many people died since 1985 when Proton was born?

Only about 8 years ago started giving us airbags. Before that, give us tin kosong when world standards demanded airbags as compulsory

It is solely because of Proton that 30 million people in Malaysia suffer. Everybody’s biggest payment per month is their cars as we are paying overpriced cars.

You see, in the 80s or even in the early 90s, you can get a brand new Nissan 130Y or a Toyota Corolla for RM20,000. Now, the same car is RM139,000.

In truth, the past 30 years, car prices have come down a lot globally and have NOT gone up due to inflation. It has come down due to economies of scale achieved by car companies. This is proven by the fact that you can get a brand new purely Japan made top spec Toyota Camry 2.5 with 10 airbags in the US for US$22,000. That is about RM60,000. The normal B segment car like the Almera is sold in the US for US$9,999. (RM30,000). Mind you, this is after Toyota and Nissan of the US has made their margin and profits and the US government has collected taxes and duties from Nissan and Toyota. The direct from factory prices is far cheaper. UMW will get the above 2.5 Camry for US$15,000 from their principal in Japan. As our Camry is CKD, the price is even lower than that.

So, in actual fact, most Malaysians can enjoy cheap and reasonable cars but because of Proton, all the other car prices have been raised up tremendously to protect Proton. Malaysians have already suffered so much. For 30 years, 30 million people suffer so much. We struggle paying for our high car prices all because of one man’s dream of benefiting his friends and relatives and forcing the dying Proton to live with billions of our LHDN money, money which could be used to build more schools and hospitals.

If we did not have Proton sucking money from LHDN, each state can have an addition 10 fully fledged government hospitals and 10 fully fledged government schools every 10 years being built. But all our LHDN money go to the failing Proton. Every year government gives hundreds of million to Proton as form of grants. Every other year, Proton ask RM billions in help. Recently, even under private hands also (DRB) Proton asked the government to give them free few RM billions from LHDN.

Proton also cost us hundreds of billions in ringgit in investments from car companies who moved to Thailand and Indonesia. Car companies got fed up with Malaysia’s MITI for protecting Proton and telling other companies what to price their cars. They got sick and tired of the AP system and how genuine brands cannot get enough APs to import their cars in (like Mercedes, BMW and Honda).
They thought that if they set up their brands and plants in Malaysia, they knew they had to give 30% of their hard earned company free away as well as being told by MITI what to price their cars. They all moved their operations to Thailand making it the AutoCity of the world.

Recently GM announced that they rolled out already 1 million cars from Thailand. Imagine if GM was in Malaysia and we taxed GM RM10,000 per car. Calculate that with 1 million cars. Just from GM alone, we lost Billions in USD. Imagine what will the amount be from other car companies if they had set up in Malaysia, like they did in Thailand?
Because of Proton, we lost hundreds of billion of ringgit in investment and trillions of ringgit from jobs lost. If Malaysia was the autocity of Asia, hundreds of thousands of jobs would have been created for Malaysians. We lost all that. Trillions of Ringgit and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Now, Thailand is benefiting from this trillions lost.
Car companies are flocking to invest hundreds of billions in Thailand despite Thailand being an unstable government, unstable economy and full of bomb blastings and terror.
Yet, global car companies still prefer Thailand.

Erm. Most Japanese brands still don’t care about safety on the Malaysian market, despite having all the required technology sitting in a drawer.

The money for the high car taxes went to the government. If they didn’t have that, you would have seen the GST be introduced long before that. You know what the price of lower car prices in Europe is? For every $1 you earn you get to keep 50 cent. Rest goes away in taxes, health insurance etc.

Proton bashers were really butthurt when reading this article. Cant stand people keep praising proton bout safety. Proton’s sales figure will rise if RTD enforce more stringent requirement because Proton capable to produce safe car with cheap price..who said that people go for kia and mazda? Look at the recent sales figure Proton will increase the volume and will overtake Perodua in coming 2 years..

Firstly, to Mahathir. Why are all your sons and yourself as well as Siti Hasmah not using Proton? You all use mainly Porsche. Why not using Proton Tun? Mahathir promotes Proton so much but sendiri tak pakai Proton. If Proton is so safe, why Dr M and family don’t use Proton in their personal lives?

Ministers also, most Ministers and the whole Cabinet cronies don’t use Proton. If you speak so highly of Proton, why you all don’t use Proton in your personal lives?

Secondly, why are the export models so much higher in quality than the local models? I was using a Satria Export model meant for the UK market. It was so high in quality compared to the local Satria.

Why do we Malaysians get trash and we give the Mat Salleh better quality Proton?

Is this fair? After all Proton was created to give Malaysians cheap cars. Now, we give Mat Salleh cheap and better Proton but Malaysians get the lower grade Proton

You see Proton is actually a good concept. But when Mahathir created Proton, he made sure every single part of the Proton car is supplied by his crony buddies. And these crony buddies overcharge Proton by ten times whilst giving poor and inferior parts.

That is why your Proton always falls apart and everybody blames quality control. That is the reason also why Proton makes only RM500 per car that they sell. It is solely because of the crony vendors who are overcharging Proton. For example, per car Mat is sold to Proton for RM100 whilst you can buy the same car mat from Brothers for RM10.

So, Proton can say all it wants about quality being raised but until ALL Proton’s vendors are changed, how can the quality go up?

Mahathir won’t do this. All his buddies have got the contract to be vendors to Proton. Mahathir will just ensure that all the vendors for Proton remain the same. All his buddies and relatives, so why upset his relatives when he can continue his past misgivings?

Proton will still get the same low inferior quality parts it has been getting for the past 30 years and it will still be overcharged by 10 times for each part the vendors supply.

Malaysians have already suffered so much. For 30 years, 30 million people suffer so much. We struggle paying for our high car prices all because of one man’s dream of benefitting his buddies and friends. Until Proton changes ALL their vendors, Proton will be a loss making organisation because it produces super low quality cars due to its vendors supplying Proton Super low Quality parts.

Millions of new cars sold in middle and low income countries fail to meet the UN’s basic safety standards for front and side impacts revealed international automotive safety watchdog Global NCAP today

Safety improvements stimulated by legislation and consumer awareness campaigns in high income economies that have saved hundreds of thousands of lives are not yet systematically available for drivers and their families in rapidly growing lower income markets.

For example, crash test standards introduced twenty years ago for cars sold in Europe, are yet to be met by many new cars, and even brand new models, being sold today in leading middle income countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This is entirely unacceptable. Manufacturers cannot continue to treat millions of their customers as second class citizens when it comes to life saving standards of occupant protection.

18 years still unable to resolve power window problem. The more nonsense they put in, the more problems. Proton only manufacturer to give life time warranty on power window. Engine uses timing belt becos it is a safety belt.

Proton is for poor people who got no ambition in life. It is mainly for the kampung people who are always expecting Government help.

Aim higher in life. Aim to buy a Toyota. You cannot buy a Toyota because you are lazy and want to sleep. You don’t want to work hard that is why you got no money in life and settle for Proton, a car with such low quality and no RV.

Toyota is for ‘rich wannabe’ people who got no ambition in life. It is mainly for the ‘sorhai tai lan ngong’ people who are always perasan driving a Mercedes or Lexus, but in fact they are driving a jamban junk cars with joking safety features in this decade.

Aim higher in life. Aim to buy a good quality cars or even Made in Japan CBU Toyota, not pariah ‘jamban junk’ Toyota from UMW. You can only buy a ‘jamban junk’ UMW Toyota with 9 years loan because you are lazy and want to sleep. You don’t want to work hard that is why you got no money in life and settle for ‘jamban junk’ Toyota from UMW, a car with such low quality and hailat RV that you will yell out ‘Hailat lorr’ when it’s time to sell it off.

18years and still unable to solve a sumple power window problem. You think all those so called safety features will work? 30 years and still struggling to sell 130,000 cars. Hyundai started same time but is selling 6 million cars per year. Shameful

Malaysians are so uneducated and ignorant. How do you think Korean giants like Samsung and Hyundai-Kia got so huge, so successful and finally, so dominant in the international market?

They also had government protectionism for decades. In fact, their government even manipulated prices internationally to make Korean products more competitive. Their government pumped money into these industries to make sure they grow huge and generate jobs for locals.

But the Koreans are not dumb like Malaysians. They supported their local products because they can see where that will get them decades later. They evangelized their country’s products although the early products were totally crap. Anyone remember those awful early Korean stuff from Goldstar and junk like the Hyundai Scoupe?

The people didn’t bash day and night for the Korean government to shut down LG, Samsung, Hyundai-Kia for producing crappy products. When Koreans started selling their vehicles abroad in developing countries like Southeast Asia and Latin America, the Koreans did not laugh at their local industries and treat them like outcasts.

But Malaysians are a different breed. We blame everything on cronyism even as our local companies have taken great strides on their own revenue. We don’t want to be taxed for anything on one hand, but on the other hand there is a large segment of us that feel like we can tell the government what to do because we pay taxes.

We don’t want the country to remove subsidies and want the government to continue spending on society, but we don’t want the government to collect tax revenue. We don’t want our local industries to flourish and some even ask for local companies to be shut down, but we want Malaysia to have a high-income economy.

No wonder Malaysia is still stuck as a third-world country! The population has no clue about what to do and only know how to talk cock like their favorite politicians!

So we supported Proton for 20 years and that is not enough? I can understand why the Koreans support their own products because they help to improve the economy of their country but Proton? Are there any economy improvement brought by Proton in these years besides asking more money from the G? Let’s not forget, many investors are moving to either to Thailand, Indo or other Asean countries because of the “protection” policy. Malaysia initially can become “Detroit of Asia”, but look what it has become today? If not for the “protection”, Proton early already close shop. Let’s not lie to ourselves, the only reason why Proton still exist today is to “Jaguh Kampung”, to show the world that we can, but can we? We have contributed enough and i’m sure the rakyat would agree

Because of Proton, Toyota is moving to Indo for investment instead of Malaysia. Many of the CKD car companies in Malaysia are also going to close shop. Proton can continue to monopoly the market and Proton supporters can rejoice

Other car brands are going else where because the Malaysian government is slow and unpredictable. Today say a, tomorrow b, then c. All the freaking time change the plan. But car makers need to be able to plan ahead. If there is a new policy it will take half a year or even more to even react to it, and then a couple more years to get back the investment. By that time Malaysia has changed the policies 5 times.

Car makers can offee hybrids assembled in Malaysia tax free. The announcement happened a year ago and only lasts until the end of this year. Toyota just introduced the Camry hybrid. And otherwise only Honda who started earlier and Mercedes are making use of it, even though it would give them a big advantage. But so far no one knows if the incentives will continue. So no one dares to invest.

Yes bro..you are absolutely right..but look at the bright side..finally the Koreans have made it to the international stage..they came almost same time as proton and where are they now?? We Malaysian are willing to give proton a chance but look at them..even after millions spent on proton,their preve is still not prefect ..they were almost there when they introduced waja 10 years ago but it stayed there..no improvement what so ever..so is it our mistake??

Get your facts right.. Kia started building cars back in early 70s, and before that was building motorcycles and trucks. Hyundai started building cars in the late 60s. It took them more than 35 years to be where they are now.

U should get your facts right.. Hyundai started in the late 60s and not mid 80s.. It took them about 40 years to get where they are now, with SK government protection.. They almost went bankrupt back in the late 90s, and had to merge with Kia Motor to survive..

The difference between Korea and Malaysia is albeit protectionism and cronyism (the powerful Chaebol and government conglomerate ) , the Koreans succeed and Malaysia FAIL in every miserable way.

We Malaysian are not against protectionism, nor the state interfering and injecting fund into heavy industry business. Actually, it’s a necessary evil to make local industry grow until it’s good enough to compete globally.

Sadly, here’s is where the similarity between the Koreans and Malaysians stop. In Korea, people work hard, with sheer dedication and sacrifice to create REAL VALUE, so that their products can win the hearts not only the locals, but the international market as well. Decades later, they succeeded.

In Malaysia, creating real value and making good quality product is never a business priority. We see one crook after another, kawan baik, cucu-cicik, bini and cronies with zero credentials are appointed as the leadership by CONNECTION, not capability or quality. They screw it up, turn the company in red and wait for the government to bail them out, or, taken over by the next crony. Meanwhile, the production line chunked out lousy quality products for decades and blame the rakyat for not being patriotic when their sales is bad. What kind of bullshit is this?

How can Malaysia progress when our way of running a business defeats every sane business sense? It’s all about makan duit, milk it dry and let tax payer’s money bail them out. How to progress? Look at Proton, look at Indah Water, look at 1MDB and last but not least, the MAS, can’t even put telur rebus in their nasi lemak, I wonder how much $$ the UMNO-link catering company makan in his pocket by supplying this kind of awful food to our national flag carrier.

Do you support such a business? I certainly don’t. And one more thing, Koreans don’t sell sub-standard car to their own rakyat with A HIGHER PRICE than the export market. In Malaysia, Proton does that. If you want to be a sohai paying higher price than foreigner buying inferior product produced by your beloved Proton, by all means go ahead.

Its just Malaysian mentality, be it from the top all the way to the bottom. No patriotism and dedication among the citizens.. How to move forward?

Malaysians, in general, tend to complain a lot rather than working harder and smarter, unlike the Koreans and Japanese. Our people complain a lot about corruptions and cronyism, yet still participate in the practice as well.

The drive for the democratisation of car safety must now be extended across all automotive markets worldwide. By 2020 at the latest we want all new cars to meet basic standards for both crash protection and crash avoidance. They must have crumple zones, air bags, and electronic stability control. Our new report sets out ten clear recommendations to transform global car safety as well as a realistic and affordable timetable for their implementation.

Taken together these life saving recommendations have the potential to prevent tens of thousands of avoidable deaths and hundreds of thousands of injuries every year.

Even Im a toyota user( previous generation), Im support u. UMW become too greedy ready. They think whatever junk they throw, people will buy it. Just add on chrome panel here and there enough. latest 2.0 camry is a very good example for greedyness of UMW , even not bother to offer VSC for 150k D segment car. TOYOTA is good, but UMW is true culprit.

Safety features in Iriz/Preve/Suprima should be followed by other ‘national-car’ manufacturer.Even proton is bashed alot lately coz of its past reputation, at least for now they are trying to put good safety specs in our national model, compare to Perodua..if low cost car can comply all these safety regulations, im sure UMW and the rest must to comply to..

car like myvi, kancil, axia or alza is only suitable for ppl with japanese driver behavior and mind. rackless malaysian or korean driver not suit with produa cars. japanese practice safety driving manners and their speed limits on normal roads is only between 30~60km/h. rebadge kei car and sell it in malaysia without any effort to increase safety features is unacceptable!

have u lived in japan? u r right when you convert yen to ringgit, BUT that is not the only thing you have to pay.
double insurance, parking lot(u need to prove to to authority that u hv parking lot b4 u can buy a car). the cheapest parking lot u can get is 2000 yen but usually around 5k to 10k yen per month. NO free parking lot at public place. after 5 years, owner must run tru car inspection and pay for shaken. and, fuel price isn’t cheap here in japan!

PROTON, your founder and our dear PM are at loggerheads now.I think PM may consider giving some grants to you,but now cos of the public spat,the grants are diverted elsewhere….UNFORTUNATE.
Chalking a staggering loss of rm 821 juta,Proton…you are just deflecting public criticism by coming up with all the usual promotional price cuts and safety programs (which are welcome),but you sorely miss the point….HOW TO RETURN TO PROFITABILITY.
FROM 2013 TO 2014,YOU LOST A STAGGERING 1.4 BILLION rm.How on earth did you fill up the shithole? With secretive taxpayers money?
Insaf,lah.Just close down this DAMNED COMPANY and ask PM for mercy,to give you A GIANT AP to bring in exotic recon cars and original BIRKIN HANDBAGS.SURE PLENTY OF SALES,so that the retrenched staff got new employment.

Your excellency IOMA,this taknak Toyota guy must be the hardcore proton fanboy.
He passed rocket science,definitely,but cant think straight with common sense.
Perhaps,he is a proton staff, not knowing how wrecked his company is.He is a whisper from pending retrenchment,which is sure to come.
If your company lost RM 1.4 Billion in 2 years,do you think your job is safe?
Some of these fanboys,have deep shit sense,all they know is to hate Honda and toyota.
When I started working 30 donkey years ago,I drove a Toyota,but cos of shit protong,all japanese cars were beyond reach of the masses cos of steep taxes,except those who dont mind forking out more or extending the loan period.
Protong’s accumulated losses since DRB took over easily exceed RM4 Billion…only MMC with double tracking profits(with other mega projects)could shoulder this f….up national service project.

One can’t deny how safe the Iriz and Preve feel compared to the Myvi and the Persona (two of which don’t have any HPF panels, and no ESP etc). In fact, HPF is amazing, its one of the reasons why when you go and see a wrecked up Preve, most of the time, while the whole front is gone, anything after the firewall is fine, and there is not a single bend to the A pillar, an indication on how strong the passenger cell held up. The Myvi still crumbles like a biscuit.

Having said that, pedal travel too must be measured cause that decides if your knee will survive or a bone will smash it up. And side impact too.

But of course, Malaysians can’t give a toss, they don’t wear seatbelts, rather take a car with “semi bucket seats” and a touchscreen over one with ESP. Seriously, something needs to be done to knock sense into people.

Why not VW? My dad is using vw polo for two years and the performance is still great. Not to mention about the great engineering, and also the ride quality and handling. The steering is smooth and tightens at high speed as well.

Great article. This is how Proton’s advances in safety should have been exemplified…. not by voicing ambiguous statements like “” and “Proton got 5-star rating, on par with Volvo, BMW, Toyota etc.”. People are just going to laugh it off, regardless of who claims it, be it MITI, Proton or the media.

Which is why humility works when it comes to controversial topics. Actions speak much louder than words. Malaysians who value the importance of car safety will greatly appreciate what Proton has been doing for the last 3 years. They don’t need someone to tell them that Proton is as good as some Euro company with regards to safety, they already appreciate Proton for what it represents to them (in safety at least).

So far, I have not come across a single company like Proton today with regards to safety. Proton is the ONLY low-cost car manufacturer in the world to emphasise safety. Even Romania’s Dacia adopts a ‘you get what you pay for’ approach with safety. Russia’s Lada, Iran’s Saipa and IKCO, and most car manufacturers in China and India have not been able to consistently produce low-cost cars with full-spec safety (ESC, 6 airbags as standard). Granted, not all Proton models have full-spec safety (like the Suprima S Standard, cheaper Iriz models and all the pre-2012 Proton models on sale today), but the upward trend is obvious. In the future, Proton will only make safer and safer cars, it will only get better from here.

I’d suggest that the government and organisations STOP speaking on behalf of Proton… because educated Malaysians will NEVER trust anything our gov and their proxies say, even if it’s true. I think MITI meant well, but didn’t express their points properly. If they can’t put their points across properly, then don’t say anything at all. Thanks to MITI and their carelessless, now the entire Malaysia is making fun of Proton just because they can. I hope MITI is happy with what they have achieved.

Well, I do not know, that’s fact. Another fact is that p1 is own by a GLC company known as DRB. So long that it’s viewed as “crownified”, it’ll be condemn and hated, that’s also the truth.

And DK, not that I say p1 has bad car (Iriz is quite good). But public perception of this company is just terrible because of the indirect ties to the G. But who knows? Obviously I don’t know, according to you.

I doubt it. Even if Proton cuts all ties with the government, Malaysians will still find ways to bash them endlessly.

However, I can tell you this for sure; the moment Proton starts selling more cars overseas than they do in Malaysia, everything will change. It shows that Proton can succeed in a free and global market, without protection or preferential treatment. Succeeding overseas is the fastest and most effective way to fix Proton’s tarnished image. It doesn’t matter if Proton only exports to countries like Bangladesh, Egypt or Iran; so long as Proton can bring wealth into Malaysia by selling their products overseas, that’s a huge step forward already.

No mass-market car company can survive by selling in their own country alone (except maybe China and India). Just look at the Australians, they make pretty good cars (Holden and Ford AU), and yet despite their technological achievements, their national car companies will be stopping local production and R&D within the next few years. Why ? Because the Australians don’t export their cars as much, they’re self-reliant. Like most Malaysians, most Australians despise their national cars because of past failures. They too think their local car companies are hopeless and should be closed down to save tax-payers money and further open up the market. Of course, there are some enthusiasts who are against this, they think Holden and Ford AU can still succeed if given a second chance, but after all these decades, most people have simply lost hope.

If we were to learn anything at all, it’s that globalisation is the name of the game today.

Normally I would agree but to explain to the layman, I don’t fault MITI for over simplifying some explanation and make it relate-able to the non-savvy buyers and uncles & aunties.
Instead going on a long story/power point slide to tell how the iriz complies to a list of safety regulations and how each of them functions to protects users, its easier to say it is as safe as a Benz, Beemer, Volvo. If its true, people can relate to that.

As for trust with the Gov, can they believe someone like Rafizi after his latest fiasco with BMW?

I don’t mean to be offensive, but the article above is not rocket science material. The fact is, Malaysians are just too damn lazy to read, that’s a FACT. Most Malaysians like to jump to conclusions right after they read the headlines, without sparing a few minutes to actually read the accompanying report or article.

And our media is equally at fault. Does anyone here know what ‘yellow journalism’ is ? Google it. Has anyone noticed how differently paultan.org’s headlines are phrased, compared to the other sources like MalaysiaKini, Malaysia Chronicle, Free Malaysia Today etc. ? These pro-Pakatan news portals, so called ‘free media’ actively practice yellow journalism. On paultan.org, the article read “Modern Proton cars just as safe as Volvos – MITI”, meanwhile, Free Malaysia Today’s headline read “Ministry claims Proton on par with Volvo, BMW and more”…. which one of these two headlines is more provoking and taken out of context ? Clearly, these pro-Pakatan news portals are just as corrupted as Bernama, The Star and NST. Whatever happened to journalistic integrity and common courtesy ?

Anyway, back to my original point. Yes, you are right my friend, if people knew what MITI was trying to say, no problem, but I still don’t see why they couldn’t properly contextualize their points. There was no need to compare Proton to Volvo, BMW etc., they could have just explained how Proton has been moving forward in the safety aspect, and elaborated a bit. Most Malaysians will not contest that, but because MITI mentioned Volvo, BMW etc., it instantly nullified whatever they were saying prior. It made MITI sound cocky and over-confident.

Also, Rafizi shouldn’t have jumped the gun. That’s all I’m gonna say. Our politics is a matter of a lesser of two evils.

Unfortunately we live in an era where the older folks dont understand what is ECE VTA ESC and other nomenclature. They would grasp the idea of safe like Volvo, prestige like Benz, drive like BMW. How would promote to them?
On the other hand, the younger generation have an attention span of 3 seconds and their capabilities to digest factual data is questionable. They would not sit down for your presentation and listen to all the regulations being crammed into their heads. After 3 secs, phone is out and you just lost their interest. You would need a soundbite to market to these people. So how would you make it easily relate-able?

eerr..pardon me for pointing out..New KIA Picanto has 6 airbags,ESC,ABS, Brake Assist System (BAS), Traction Control System (TCS), Hill-Start Assist Control (HAC), Speed Sensing Auto Door Lock and Impact Sensing Auto Door Unlock.Sub 60k but I bought mine last year at 48k during raya promotion. And our Picanto Club Owner(PICO) is one of the happiest auto clubs around.

I think malaysian mindset hv been sceptical about two malaysia car
1. Proton: ” no good quality”
2. Perodua: ” more quality than proton”
..we as malaysian very welcome of proton effort! Hope this can tune up ” malaysian mindset” about they product!.. me honestly bought 2nd myvi 1.3 as my 1st car. almost 7 year never hd major prob only aircond 1 times. Hehe

all the stars are nothing if there’s no law forcing some cars with 2 stars and below to reach the street, as well as incentive to the car makers to go for the higher safety rating.

and btw, proton seems to be the only car maker here in malaysia that is putting a lot of effort into car safety, but let’s not discount the fact that our car market is not competitive enough to ensure the car makers fit every safety feature available into their cars. and they will always have to count in the cost factor. if the cars in malaysia are being allowed to compete freely, without having to pay ultra high taxes, i believe we will see more car makers actually do care about car safety, and not skimp on giving all the safety features to customers.

Ya,this is Malaysia.When talk about Proton,always got criticter.Got protection lah,ask government money lah.Come on guys?Can you prove that Proton ask money from Government?Prove please!And since when Proton car is failure?If fail,there will no Proton car on the road.only got your holy “good” car like the Toyota,Honda.You know what,the Suprima S,Iriz,all now got many on the road.Based on Proton report,Iriz now got 25k on the road.And if you come to USJ 12 area,there are many people using Suprima S.Plus me.

Same lorr butthurt……Bragging and hating all cars except Toyota……Get A life man and get yourself a vios if u can afford one or may i suggest you to get the New Iriz,suprima or preve or….if u still can afford em, get yourself a kereta sorong and dump all your stupidity and shove em up your own ass…who cares about RV nowadays? Only Same Loorrr……madafaka!

figure showed that rakyat bought more T&H cars and P2 or other brand are becoz of the BRAND POWER instead of “safety features” and Asean NCAP stars rating.proton need to focus more on bringing the dark side of proton brand out from rakyat minds.if not sales figures may continue the same.also dont forget that malaysian r known to be more concern on cost rather than safety.

Yes, safety is good. But for most Malaysians, buying a car is a 5-9 years affair with many months of income commitment.

Proton might look cheap on paper, until you discover your radiator bocor within the first two years of ownership, power window fail, those flimsy plastics knob fail, screw on gearlever lossen, door handle easily broken by your wife pulling it with gentle force, fuel pump fail, roof leaking, compressor fail, all kind of funny sound everywhere in the car, useless GPS , Andriod system that always hang….(the list goes on)

Soon, many Malaysian who are naive to buy Proton in the name of patriotism found out that owning Proton is not a cheap affair after all. Add up those premature failure of parts and frequent visit to the SC, owning a Proton is almost as expensive, if not more expensive than having a Jepun brand. By learning through the hard way, more and more Malaysians are willing to fork out RM 200 or RM 300 more in monthly instalment to enjoy higher reliability and peace of mind. And that amount of money per month is almost negligible for middle class, and is definitely worth to pay to save the nightmare of having a Proton.

You can’t really blame Malaysian for being “shallow” when it comes to safety. For most of them, they would rather drive a reliable car rather than paying those “hidden costs” of replacing one spare part after another owning a Proton, which inevitably, hedging their safety on greedy company like UMW.

It’s a catch 22, but most Malaysian rather pay the price for higher reliability albeit with sup-par safety feature rather having to fix their car all the time.

People don’t experience the effect of ESP everyday, let alone seeing where the harewarr actually sits in their car. But a lousy cabin with lousy plastics and rubbish GPS which can’t work definitely annoys the driver, because that’s where the owner sits EVERYDAY. So in the game if shallow perception, Proton surely fail big time.

I find your argument a magnifying of sheer stupidity to the highest form. How about you buy a smart phone with a camera but cannot take picture? You took your phone back to the shop, and the person tell you,” Aiya, nevermind, use digital camera also can take better picture, no need pakai smart phone!”

When you buy something with your hard earn money, it’s the duty of the product company to ensure all the functions and capability perform as advertise. Imagine Apple come out an Iphone with a defect wifi receptor and ask customer to buy another modem to use wifi… All Apple customers all over the world will immediately fxxk Apple left, right, front and back.

What the point Proton put a stupid, almost non-functional GPS unit for cosmetic purpose? Might as well just don’t put anything at all.

You must be one unlucky person in the world to have so many things wrong with your car.I had a waja for 9 years with nothing much wrong with it except it’s alternator (once)and power windows. But then I had to replace my honda civic power windows motor way before that of the waja. Psst – I never serviced my waja aircond for that 9 years and it works fine but I replaced the compressor of the Honda twice in its 12 yrs. All in all the honda cause more trouble and cost me more than the waja. Guess what car I bought after the waja? I hate to disappoint u but I’m now driving a suprima s and loving it. And if u think it’s because I don’t have the money, you’re wrong. So please smile more and don’t hate anything so much – it’s not good 4 the heart.thank u.

Proton, safety initiative are good cause however this continuous safety improvement and it does comes with additional cost to meet safety standards and very much of need for IRIZ a global car for international market.

Again not a statement on how Proton IRIZ (a global car) currenty safety features are competitive with international cars in the similar segment. Now Proton aware ENCAP and ANCAP that to maintain 4-5 stars rating it need to upgrade safety features based on MITI safety guidelines and ANCAP for local market. Proton is still living in the comfort zone, when continue to address features improvement for domestic market consumptions. Proton has this denial state of mind, which success dometic sales is enough.

We rakyat will never trust Proton ever. For 30 years rakyat suffer so much paying craziest car tax in the world and factored in the double tax again on car loan interest charges. Effectively causing us paying triple cost of car ownership or more.

But God and Karma always be with rakyat by punishing Proton billions loss until it runs away to Bangladesh.

The day Proton quit market here go to Bangladesh, rakyat will go out on streets celebrating dancing finally free from this bully named Proton. What a joy its gonna be!

1. That all UN Member States adopt the following two stage minimum car safety regulation plan and implementation timescale by the end of the UN Decade of Action in 2020:STAGE 1UN Regulations* for Frontal Impact (No.94), Side Impact (No.95), Seat Belt and Seat Belt Anchorages (No.14 & No.16)by 2016 for All All New Car Models Produced or Importedby 2018 for All Cars Produced or ImportedSTAGE 2

2. All UN Member States with significant automobile production should participate in the World Forum for Harmonisation of Vehicle Regulations to promote a levelling up of the safety standards in an open and competitive market for automobiles and their components.

3. Fleet purchasers both in the private and public sectors and rental companies should adopt Global NCAP’s Buyer’s Guide and choose ‘five star’ vehicles wherever possible.

4. Governments and the insurance industry should provide fiscal incentives and to encourage more rapid deployment of new technologies through the passenger car fleet.

5. NCAPs should be supported by Governments and donors to extend consumer related testing to include all the world’s major automobile markets and the widest range of models especially the most popular and important.

6. Investment should be encouraged in laboratory capacity and skills training to enable homologation, in use compliance, and independent NCAP testing in all world regions.

7. The automobile manufacturers should make a voluntary commitment to apply front and side impact crash test standards (UN Regs. 94 & 95 or FMVSS 208 & 214) to all their new models from 2016.

8. The automotive industry should cease the practice of de-specification and bundling of safety features. Instead they should make available the full range of safety design and devices in all their major markets and price the relevant technologies separately.

9. The automobile manufacturers should improve the content of their sustainability responsibility reporting to include data on the applied safety standards of its global vehicle production.

10. To sustain the in use safety of automobiles UN Member States should, a) apply conformity of production checks to models already approved on their market, b) carry out regular roadworthiness testing and include tyre depth and pressure checks in such PTI requirements, and c) consider using scrappage schemes to remove older unsafe vehicles from the road.

If people praise you and support you, what you need to do is to further improve your products and services, not to become arrogant, and not to take advantage and start exploitation.

Don’t misundertand. This is targeting all businesses and politics.

1. What do you feel, especially during rainy days, when you drive an unsafe vehicle?

2. What do you think about the ride and handling of Protons, compared to, say Toyota Camry? (We are not focusing on comfort and NVH). For that kind of price, what do you think, especially 2airbags + 0ESP? Do you think it is worth additional 90k for that little amount of additional comfort + NVH + convenience, provided that you do not have inferiority complex? If you are going for business/contracts, then you should be driving Mercedes to show off to your business partners (yes, you need to). Come back to the initial question: what do you think about Lotus ride and handling at cheap price, is it real?

3. Please rectify customers complaints promptly. While we know plastic rattling sounds and power window problem are minor and rectifiable, but they do give negative impressions.
Think about big picture.
Comparing a Vios G with Persona (Preve has 6 airbags + ESP), the additonal 35k that you pay can generate RM1200 bank interest per year, how many power windows can you buy with that, and does a Vios drive/handle better than a Persona?
Has anybody with Protons at 200k milage and the major structure like undercarriage/suspension system is still okay?
Have you heard of relatively new cars (4 to 5 years) at almost double the Proton”s price have sounds from below the cars, with brake system malfunction and so on?

5. Even without Proton, it is still in doubt that vehicles will get cheaper, or, be better equiped with safety gadgets (10 airbags like in the United States of America), or, the vehicle taxes be reduced to a more reasonable level.

6. So please, make your decison wisely, according to your financial status. Widen your visions. You make you own decisions.

Do you think I am a Malay, aged 25 years, earning 3 thousand ringgit per month, possessed SPM credit, staying in a flat, driving Proton Saga FLX, and blindly support BN & UMNO, and that’s why I said good words about Proton and the government? Have I ever showed regret (or gently critised) on what the government, or DAP, did? Do you think I hate anyone, like DAP, BN, UMW/Toyota, or Proton? Everybody should become wiser when the age is older.

Please, your political opponents are not your enemies (if they behave properly); you become healthier with good parti pembangkang, don’t over-react. You need to listen to some ‘noise’, or do you think you are God, both perfect and ideal?

Why Proton needs to explain so much about this? Rakyat already lost interest in the car. almost all car makers these days comply to rules even Chinese and Indian companies do. what they want to prove is not relevant. fix the quality of the car and mis management

IM SO SORRY, You may comment anything about this post, but please dont say those two muka sombong and all that, i know them both, they are really nice and good people, you cant simply judge people based on what you see and what you hate. They were giving explanation, a serious matter, are you expecting them to smile all the time? haih, seriously~

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